Citing a new infographic, released by a parliamentary research group, UK’s Mail Online said 1,548 Malaysian doctors were currently serving in the NHS.
It also reported that 2,201 Malaysians were registered as NHS staff as of September 2017, making the country the 16th biggest group among all nationalities.
However, apart from the doctors, there is no breakdown of the other jobs they are doing for the NHS.
The House of Commons Library picture shows 87.5% (976,288) of the staff working in the NHS are British.
In contrast, 137,000 doctors, nurses and infrastructure staff are nationals, including just under 62,000 EU nationals.
Other than Brits, the second-most number of nationals working in the NHS are from India, with over 18,000 working in the health service.
The Philippines has 15,391 workers in the NHS.
It is well-known that the NHS is reliant on foreign staff and 202 nationalities are working in the health service.
The large number of Malaysian doctors serving in the NHS may be cause for concern as a news report in June last year stated there are just over 7,000 specialists in the country.
About 4,000 of these specialists are in the public sector and this is not enough to meet Malaysia’s medical needs.
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